18 March 2020
As Assad’s health minister smirks about the army “cleansing Syria of bacteria,” doctors in Damascus, Aleppo, and Idlib tell Al-Jumhuriya they are woefully ill-prepared to deal with a Coronavirus outbreak.
Damascus
After last week’s arrest in France of a former “Army of Islam” spokesman, Orwa Khalife recounts the gruesome history of the militia, from kidnappings in the Damascus suburbs to ethnic cleansing in the Turkish border zone.
Alia Malek's often-powerful portrait of her Damascus home sheds light on the perils and pleasures of Syria's pre-war society, but also leaves questions unresolved, writes Eric Reidy.
Using videos of Western-style parties in Syria, the Assad regime has sought to portray itself as a defender of liberal modernity against benighted "terrorist" opponents. Yet these crude and dishonest propaganda efforts only underscore the oppression at the heart of Assad's state, writes Robin Jones.
Beaten, humiliated, then sent as cannon fodder to the ISIS frontlines: A former defector recounts his experience of “reconciliation” with the Assad regime, which appears more interested in punishing its defeated opponents than making peace with them.
A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.
An essential new book by the only international journalist to have lived full-time in Damascus post-2011 shows the Assad regime’s criminality to be even worse than previously understood.
A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.
Co-director of prize-winning film Still Recording tells Al-Jumhuriya about filming under chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta, and the untold stories of life in revolutionary Syria.
A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.
A quick English summary of our Arabic news coverage this week.
A young Damascus resident questions the value of the cultural initiatives sponsored by international NGOs in the regime-held capital.